The Runaways, the debut feature of music-video artist Floria Sigismondi, tells the story of the brief, chaotic life of the first female hard-rock band, fronted by a pre-Blackhearts Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and lead singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). An ear-popping mash-up of glam rock and punk, the all-teen Runaways formed in 1975 and flamed out four years later; a new exhilarating greatest hits album testifies to their fierce, raw talent. Jett, Currie, and Sigismondi talked to ELLE Film Critic Karen Durbin.

Karen Durbin: I understand you didn't participate the 2004 Runaways documentary Edgeplay, which was made by a former bassist for the band. Why did you decide to executive-produce this film?

Joan Jett: Edgeplay, it seemed to me at least, tended to dwell on aspects that you'd find in any band—the arguments, the Jerry Springer stuff. I thought the Runaways material was so fertile for a great documentary that focused on the bands we played with, the tours, the musicians we may have influenced. That's where I'd want to go. That's why I didn't want to be involved with Edgeplay.

Initially I really wasn't into having the Runaways' story told, period. I don't know if it was out of protection, because the Runaways was, you know, my baby. I started the band with Sandy West. I felt that the only things that could happen with a movie would be bad. But the new movie got started off by my partner Kenny Laguna, who was trying to help Cherie Currie get her memoir [Neon Angel] published and he couldn't find a publisher. So we were banging around and eventually Kenny hired J.T. LeRoy to write a screenplay of it, and then when that whole situation turned out to be a fraud, somehow Kenny hooked up with [movie producers] Art and John Linson and River Road Entertainment. River Road did Brokeback Mountain and Art Linson has a long track record of successful movies, so I decided to take a leap of faith and hope the rock `n' roll god is looking out for me.

KD: What did you do on the movie?

JJ:
Some of it involved making sure we had the proper history, the proper songs, to recreate the atmosphere of the time. I was also there as a resource for Kristen if she wanted me. I was willing to stay away as well, but she did want me around so I was ever-present: if she wanted me to do a line reading or ask me a question about the guitar, whatever it was—a mannerism or any little thing, I just wanted to make sure she had the total toolbox.

KD: Did you work with her on the music?

JJ:
We were in the studio together, but I didn't have to tell her what to do; she'd already worked by herself on sounding like me. Early on, they sent me a test recording of a song called "I Love Playing With Fire" that I sang in the Runaways, and all I could hear was me on the track. And I'm like, You have to send me another one with Kristen's voice on it—I didn't hear her. So they send me another one and it sounds exactly the same, and I'm like, It's me again, I can't hear Kristen. And they're like, No, it is Kristen. She had mastered my inflections, how hard I would hit words, every aspect of how I'd sing the song.

KD: I was involved in women's liberation in the 60s and 70s. Were you influenced by women's lib in regard to your aspirations and your music?

JJ: I can't speak for the other girls, but I was totally aware of the movement and certainly embraced it. From a very young age my parents had always told me that I could be anything I wanted, so I never thought about barriers. I wanted to be an astronaut, an archaeologist, a whole host of things before rock `n' roll. So, yeah, I felt that maybe the movement would be supportive of the Runaways. But we got a lot of backlash from women, from feminists who didn't like that we used our sexuality. What I'd say to that is this: Women are sexual, if you cut off half of them that's not cool and that's not liberation. I didn't appreciate that feminists didn't get that we were trying to take it back and use it in a strong way.

KD: Not all feminists felt that way. There were real differences within the movement, with some of the fiercest about sex and sexuality and what I would call a more puritanical perspective.

JJ: So you were one of the horny ones then?

KD: Yep. I heard that the academic term for us in women's studies is "pro-sex feminists." All cultures try to curb and control women's sexuality; on some level, it's terrifying. Sometimes it was terrifying for us but exhilarating too.

JJ: I can imagine. And the mass media gave voice to the prissy side as opposed to the pro-sex side of women's liberation, so maybe the prissy was more acceptable. It's easier to sit there and say you don't like feminists because they don't have a sense of humor.

KD: I've read that you worked with Bikini Kill and that the members of Riot Grrl movement in the '90s saw you as an inspiration.

JJ: It was an absolutely reciprocal experience with a lot of those women. All those girls in Bikini Kill—well there was one boy—were just great. There were so many bands in that whole scene out of Seattle. Bikini Kill was kind of split, they were out of Washington and Washington DC, both were really fertile for underground music. I loved working with Bikini Kill and Kathleen [Hanna], I was lucky enough to write some songs with her. I consider her very outside the box, which I sometimes would consider myself as well.

KD: Were you the first woman rocker to start her own label?

JJ: I believe that's true. It was 1979-1980, and it was because I couldn't get signed by any other label. I wanted a major deal, so Kenny Laguna took his infant daughter's college fund, which was a few thousand dollars, and we printed up a few hundred records of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' album and sold it out of the trunk of our car. That was the first Blackhearts' record.

KD: Floria [Runaways director] gave me a description of band manager, Kim Fowley, she said he walks with a cane and has bright green hair.

JJ: Yeah, sometimes it's pink. He's a wild and eccentric guy, but I was always very close to him. To me he wasn't scary, I really got a kick out of him.

KD: That's good to know. Michael Shannon played him so entertainingly, but it's easy to imagine him as a fulltime monster.

JJ: They actually got to meet. We asked Kim Fowley where he wanted to meet Michael and he said, "Denny's! Where else would the Runaways meet?" So we met at a Denny's out in the valley —Kristen and I and Michael and Kenny Laguna went—and Kim walked in with his green hair, flinging his cane around. He was with some girl all dressed up to act out a scene, and she comes right up to Michael Shannon like he's Kim Fowley and starts acting. He was crazy, so Michael got a lot of fertile material just from our two-hour dinner at Denny's.

Karen Durbin: The Runaways were so young—it's amazing they aren't all dead actually.

Floria Sigismondi: I was incredibly lucky that Dakota is 15, as Cherie Currie was when all this happened. Their music is that raw energy that you feel when you're 15 and you're sort of coming into your body. You realize you have a body, and people are paying attention to you, looking at you. The Runaways' lyrics are very primal. And then all of a sudden you're pushed in front of all these men that are going wild for you. That's what I was trying to capture: all those crazy feelings that they had.

FS: I went to art college in Toronto for painting and art, and during my last year I discovered photography. I was kind of taken by it because it's was so immediate. I thought, Okay if I don't want to work at this neighborhood bar for the rest of my life, I've got to do something. So I did photography for a while until I started to do music videos. It just kind of progressed: the understanding of the camera, the lighting, the subject, it was a natural progression.

KD: It's amazing that you went from music videos to writing and directing your first feature film. Were you familiar with the Runaways' music?

FS: Yes. That club I was telling you about—-the one that I didn't want to work at forever—played the Runaways and Cherie's "Cherry Bomb" a lot.

KD: Was Cherie on The Runaways set like Joan was?

FS: Cherie showed up sometimes, mostly to the live gigs.

KD: Did Cherie work directly with Dakota Fanning?

FS: Cherie showed Dakota her move, you know, that one move with the mic, which she still knows how to do absolutely perfectly: she wraps it around her leg, and then grabs it in between like a phallic symbol, and then does this gyrating to it.

KD: How did you cast Kristen and Dakota?

FS: When I met Kristen, she showed up with dark hair and kind of had this demeanor and I thought, Wow, she's really got the Joan Jett essence. Then, Dakota came to meet us and there was this sparkle in her eye and I really was captivated by her. She's incredibly smart, but she's fifteen. People have grown up with her, so it's almost like seeing somebody actually going through these things.

KD: True. It's strange watching her get older because she's one of those child actors who just tattoos herself on your brain. I love the scene where the terrifying Kim Fowley is forcing her to really punch it; then you see her on stage and she's totally charismatic.

FS: She's become it.

KD: How long did it take Kristen and Dakota to master being rock-star ferocious?

FS: By that last song everybody felt like a band. As an actress you can be as subtle or as quiet as you want, but as a rock star, you're out in front. I wanted Dakota to feel what it was like to have drums, amps, guitars, everything behind you, and you're fighting for your space on stage—You have to hear me! —so I put her with my husband's band for like three rehearsals. I just wanted her to feel that.

KD: Have you seen Edgeplay? I watched it after The Runaways. I think Cherie Currie is more beautiful as a woman than when she was a strung-out 15-year old.

FS: I know, poor thing. I think of her as a survivor. I don't know if you've read her book, but she's been through a lot. She's sort of a hero to me because she survived and also because she had the strength to say, You know what? I can't do this or I'm going to die.

KD: How did you cast Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley?

FS: The 2009 Oscars were on and Art Linson saw him—he was nominated for Revolutionary Road—and he just went, "Oh my god." I'd really insisted that this guy had to be six foot five; his height with these young girls was very important, so he'd be intimidating. Other names came up and I was like, No, no, no. When I saw Michael, I was like, "Oh my God, we have got to use him, he's perfect." I don't think we booked him until a week after we started shooting—things were starting to get complicated, but I was like, "No I'm holding out, that's him." [His part] is quite a mouthful—it's like a beatnik, like he's saying poetry, but with these incredible profanities—And you're just like, "Oh god, who's going to say this stuff and own it?" But he's quite amazing.

Cherie Currie: It came out in 1989. There's a new edition coming out this month. The first book was specifically a young adult book. Price Stern and Sloan usually did kiddie books, and I actually went to them as an artist. I'd been drawing a lot while I was a counselor at a hospital for drug-addicted kids. I had a couple hours to spend in the classroom with them, so I started sketching these knights in shining armor, and castles and maidens. I went to Price Stern and Sloan, and they asked me, "How long have you been drawing?" and I said, "A year," and they said "How is that possible?" Then I just happened to tell the guy my story about being in the Runaways on the road, how I made a movie with Jodie Foster, was a drug addict, ended up getting clean and sober, working at a hospital for adolescents. And he said, "Oh my god, we've been looking for our first young adult book and this is it." I went in an illustrator and came out an author.

KD: Both The Runaways and the documentary Edgeplay left me wanting to know what happened next in your life. Did you make solo records?

CC: As soon as I quit the Runaways, Kim [Fowley] called me that night and had me in the studio within two weeks to record. It's called Beauty's Only Skin Deep. I go into detail in the book about how it's the crappiest record of all time. That was my contractual obligation to Mercury [Records] because I was leaving before I'd finished the third Runaways album. So Kim threw me in the studio for a couple weeks and we cut that horrible record and then I was free.

CC: I was playing a club called the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, CA and an agent from William Morris happened to be there, and he said, "You're really good up there, have you ever thought of acting?" And I said "You know, I consider myself an entertainer, so sure, why not?" He sent me out on Foxes—it was actually called 20th Century Foxes—and when I walked into the reading there were all these gorgeous girls. And here I am in my high-top tennis shoes and my football shirt with "Cherie" across it, with my shaggy haircut, and I was like, "They are all 20th century foxes; there's no way I'm going to get this part." So I drop my script on the table and walk out onto Sunset Boulevard. And then this voice inside me says, Just turn around and go back; you must go back. And I did, and I ended up getting the part. It was incredible. I was seventeen. I had literally just left the Runaways months before.

KD: I looked at your website, which is totally fun.

CC: You mean the chainsaw sculpture one?

KD: Yes! And I want to get your book.

CC: Oh I think you'll like it. The new version is heavy duty, man; it's seriously heavy duty. I mean, it was tough—I think it aged me ten years, to be honest. It had to be done right. I'm 50, and I'm writing about my family, having to disclose some information in order to make my story make sense. So that can be brutal, but I'm extremely happy with it. I didn't pull any punches, yet I didn't go overboard. It'll scare the crap out of people; I'll tell you that much.

CC: Yes. Very soon after I met John Linson, I met Floria. She was a big question mark for me—I can't speak for Joan— because she'd never written a script and never directed a film. That left me pretty uncomfortable. And, you know, she took some liberties that bothered me a bit. Somebody's writing a screenplay from your book and you think to yourself, Wait, was my story not good enough for you? But I think all in all she accomplished something interesting.

KD: The performance footage I've seen of The Runaways was thrilling. It's no wonder nine million Japanese teenagers overwhelmed you.

CC: You know, it's funny: Stage performing for me is a whole lot easier than talking to you on the phone! That just happens to be second nature. I was very blessed as far as that was concerned. Now, you look at Joan—from the minute I met her I knew she was going to be a rock `n' roll icon. There was no doubt. I wasn't quite born to do it like she was.